Childhood Lost

Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).

Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.

Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism

(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)

"What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless."

John Stone,

UK media editor, Age of Autism

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"The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

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Aug 22, 2019, Canoe.com: 'FAKE EPIDEMIC': Study suggests autism 'epidemic' linked to expansion, loosening of definitionhttps://canoe.com/news/world/fake-epidemic-study-suggests-autism-epidemic-linked-to-expansion-loosening-of-definitionAnti-vaxer’s have espoused for many years the autism ‘epidemic’ is a consequence of vaccines.However, a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry suggests the “pretend epidemic” of autism is tied to broader diagnostic criteria and a loosening of the way the criteria are applied, narrowing the gap between those diagnosed with autism and the rest of the population, National Post reports.
Co-author of the study, Dr. Laurent Mottron, a professor in the Universite de Montreal’s department of psychiatry said: “The pretend epidemic of autism is related to the inclusion of people less and less different from non-autistics.”
The study reviewed 11 analyses of studies from 1966 to 2019 and included nearly 23,000 people diagnosed with autism.
The authors of the study were interested in reviewing how the “effect size” — a measure of the difference between people diagnosed with autism and those without it — changed over the course of that time period….
The worry for Mottron is the definition of autism is being trivialized and has become too “blurry to be meaningful.” …
Some experts contend the catalyst that triggered the rise occurred in 1994 when the American Psychiatric Association released the fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which outlines everything physicians use when diagnosing any form of mental illness.
• Genetics play bigger role in autism risk than environmental factors, study finds
• 1 in 66 Canadian children have autism spectrum disorder: report
Dr. Allen Frances, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Duke University, said the biggest mistake in the fourth edition “was including Asperger’s, a much milder form of autistic disorder with unclear boundaries to normal diversity, eccentricity and giftedness,” in the diagnosis of autism.
“Careless diagnosis, often related to requirements for extra school services, resulted in a fake epidemic — a 50-fold increase in the past 25 years,” Frances said.
Things have only been made worse as the fifth edition of the DSM created a “spectrum” that collapsed classic autism with Asperger’s syndrome, making misdiagnosis even more likely he said.
Many parents wrongly concluded the rise was due to vaccines, “not realizing it was instead a consequence of looser definitions and assessments,” Frances said, adding, “This has led to measles epidemics all over the world,” also adding that autism is not better recognized.
Rather, individuals are being diagnosed with autism that have less profound deviations from normal, he said.